The i4Health team at Palo Alto University announces the launch of a new research study to test a web app to help adult English- and Spanish-speaking smokers and low-income smokers quit. Spanish-speaking smokers use smoking cessation aids such as the nicotine patch at less than half the rate of English-speaking smokers. Low-income populations have not reduced their rates of smoking as much as the general U.S. population. The current study intends to develop, evaluate, and disseminate a new smoking cessation tool intended to benefit all smokers, including Latino and low-income smokers.

By going to StopSmokingSF.org, English and Spanish-speaking adult smokers may participate in our research study, which takes place entirely online. At our site, they will find information regarding smoking behaviors, why they should quit, and how to quit smoking. Additionally, users can set a quit date and keep track of the cigarettes they smoke on a daily basis. Participation in this study will allow the research team to evaluate the current version of the web app and develop better ones to benefit future smokers who intend to quit.

This free web app can be accessed anywhere in the United States with any web-browsing device such as a smartphone, tablet, or computer. It can be used at a time and place that is convenient to the smoker.

The Chinese Community Internet Stop Smoking Project aims
to establish a community-academic partnership to build
accessible and sustainable online self-help resources to
promote smoking cessation among Chinese smokers in the
U.S. and globally. The partnership currently consists of:
the Chinese Community Health Resource Center (CCHRC), the
Chinese Newcomers Service Center, the Richmond Area
Multi-Services (RAMS), the Asian Alliance for Health and
UCSF-Internet World Health Research Center. Feasibility
trials will be conducted to collect preliminary usability
and outcome data on the first versions of the stop smoking
website and mobile app in Chinese.

Click on the link below if you are interested in
participating in this study.

The purpose of the Health and the Web survey is
two-fold. First, we hope to gather information about
health-related areas of greatest interest among
individuals who use the Internet to obtain health
information. Second, we hope to use the study to gather
normative data for mood, smoking, and other health-related
assessment instruments used in Web surveys and randomized
trials already being conducted by the Internet World
Health Research Center at UCSF. In this survey we are
going directly to people doing Internet searches on health
topics and asking them which health issues we should
prioritize for future projects.

The Mothers and Babies Internet Project is a
two-condition pilot randomized controlled trial to examine
an automated Internet-based prevention of postpartum
depression intervention in a global sample of English and
Spanish-speaking pregnant women. Participants were
randomly assigned to either a mood management intervention
(Mothers and Babies Course; Muñoz et al., 2001) or to a
postpartum depression informational brochure. Recruitment
of new participants closed on June 15, 2012; data
collection of the follow-up assessments are ongoing until
June 2013.

This investigation has been funded by an NIMH
Individual NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship and by funds
provided by the Department of Psychiatry at the San
Francisco General Hospital.

The World Health Organization now recognizes depression
as one of the most disabling medical conditions in the
world. In 2003, in the US alone, depression costs amounted
to 44 billion dollars in lost productivity (Stewart,
Ricci, Chee, Hahn, & Morganstein, 2003). It has been
estimated that one half of all persons with depression in
the US, and 75% worldwide, do not receive adequate
treatment (Kessler, Berglund, Demler, Jin, Koretz,
Merikangas, et al., 2003). Untreated depression is
associated with to up to 60% of suicide deaths,
deteriorating health, and social problems, accounting for
more than 11% of the total disease burden worldwide, with
functional disabilities exceeded only by cardiovascular
disease and cancer (Greden, 2001).

The Internet Healthy Mood Course/”Logrando un estado
de ánimo saludable” will be the Web adaptation of
the Depression Prevention Course, which has served as the
basis for the manuals on this Website. The Web-adapted
intervention will take advantage of the interactive
capabilities of the Web. To increase interest in the site,
engage participants, and present information verbally to
participants who may have trouble reading, videos and
audio messages will accompany some of the material
presented in each module. The adapted intervention will
include self-monitoring tools that will be displayed in
graphs . For instance, participants will be able to
indicate their mood levels and activities they find
pleasant by clicking on an electronic mood scale and
activities scale, respectively, which will produce an
individualized list of activities that can then be checked
off each day.

This investigation has been funded by a R34
grant from the NIMH.

Connecting Patients and Therapists
Using a Tech-Based Treatment Support System

Depression is the second leading cause of disability and
has the highest burden of disease in the US. Behavioral
intervention technologies (BITs), showing great promise in
treating depression, require experts who can integrate an
understanding of empirically-based techniques for behavior
change with the effective design and application of
technologies.

The long-term goal of the research is to integrate BITs
into existing healthcare settings thus increasing the
efficacy of existing psychological treatments for
depression. To this end, the research plan will develop a
technology-based treatment support system (TSS) with both
patient and therapist-facing features to be used as an
adjunct for cognitive-behavioral therapy for depression
thus increasing its efficacy. This will be achieved
through the following specific aims: 1) conduct
user-centered design and usability testing to refine
features and tools of the TSS and determine feasibility
and acceptability of their use patients and therapists; 2)
conduct a randomized pilot trial of the TSS as an adjunct
to depression treatment compared to regular treatment
alone; and 3) obtain preliminary data assessing efficacy
the TSS, changes in mechanisms to be related to efficacy,
and system-level factors that would facilitate or retard
its adoption, implementation, and sustainability. These
studies are expected to advance the design of BITs,
improve and increase their use in clinical settings, and
ultimately increase the impact of evidence-based
practices.

Only a minority of depression sufferers receives quality
care. Internet interventions can offer provide access to
depression management tools to people anywhere in the
world. Our Depression Management Course offers a
fully-automatic, interactive, personalized Internet-based
self-help intervention for depression. The intervention is
based on cognitive-behavioral therapy, an empirically
supported treatment for depression. Participants receive
access to a customized eight-lesson intervention, as well
as tools to monitor their progress and other helpful
resources.

Recruitment is paused for now as we are moving to a
different software platform.

This investigation has been funded by grants
from the RWJ Health Disparities Working Group and by
the CTSI Strategic Opportunities Support Program.

The multilingual automated Mood Screener offers mood and
depression screening to anyone on the Internet. The goal
of the project is to understand the prevalence of
depression in an Internet community, as well as to track
symptoms of depression over time. Participants complete a
validated depression screener and receive feedback on
their results. Interested participants can sign up to
rescreen their mood monthly, for 12 months.

The screener is currently available in five languages:
English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Arabic.

Click on the links below if you are interested in
participating in this study.

This project will test whether brief interactive online
tools can improve mood. Participants will be randomly
assigned to two of the three available tools (Pleasant
Activity Selector, Thought Record, and Breathing
Exercise). Participants will be able to visit the site as
often as they wish to use the tools.

Poor adherence to depression treatments (psychotherapy
and pharmacotherapy) limits their effectiveness in
community settings. Problems with adherence are especially
pronounced in low-income settings. Innovative and
cost-effective methods are needed to improve adherence to
treatments and maximize mental health resources. Mobile
phone based text messaging (or short messaging service:
SMS) is a ubiquitous technology that has been used in
various health applications across socioeconomic status.
This technology has the potential to increase the fidelity
of mental health treatments via increased adherence. The
proposed research project will test whether adding an
automated SMS adjunct to group cognitive behavioral
therapy (CBT) for depression can increase adherence
(homework adherence, attendance, medication adherence) in
order to improve the quality of care in public sector
settings. The SMS adjunct will 1) prompt patients to
monitor mood, thoughts and behaviors, 2) will provide
medication and appointment reminders and 3) will send
personalized CBT based tips. The information that patients
provide will be used within the clinical setting to
highlight interrelations between thoughts, behaviors and
symptoms.

Click on the link below if you are interested in
participating in this study.